City Of Faith Hospital

Evangelist Oral Roberts, the faith healer who built a religious empire on the credo "Expect a miracle," says he can't wait for divine intervention to save his ministry's hospital and medical school. Faced with $25 million in debts, mainly because of a decline in donations, Roberts said this week that he will close the hospital by the end of the year and the medical school next year.

Evangelist Oral Roberts, who once said God told him to build a huge medical center called City of Faith, said he is selling it for an undisclosed sum to an investment group. Roberts, 74, began shutting the Tulsa, Okla., complex--three towering gold buildings, including a 60-story clinic--in 1989 because of debt. He had pleaded unsuccessfully with followers to send him $11 million to keep creditors at bay. Roberts said the investment group plans to turn the complex into commercial real estate.

Evangelist Oral Roberts, who once said God told him to build a huge medical center called City of Faith, said he is selling it for an undisclosed sum to an investment group. Roberts, 74, began shutting the Tulsa, Okla., complex--three towering gold buildings, including a 60-story clinic--in 1989 because of debt. He had pleaded unsuccessfully with followers to send him $11 million to keep creditors at bay. Roberts said the investment group plans to turn the complex into commercial real estate.

Evangelist Oral Roberts, the faith healer who built a religious empire on the credo "Expect a miracle," says he can't wait for divine intervention to save his ministry's hospital and medical school. Faced with $25 million in debts, mainly because of a decline in donations, Roberts said this week that he will close the hospital by the end of the year and the medical school next year.

Evangelist Oral Roberts announced Wednesday that he will close his City of Faith hospital and medical school and sell his home to help make up for a $25-million deficit caused by a drop in donations. Four other ministry-owned homes, including his evangelist son Richard's house, and an 830-unit housing complex for married students at Oral Roberts University here, also will be sold, Roberts said at a campus news conference. He said the 777-bed hospital would close by Jan.

A court-appointed trustee says he will sell Jim Bakker's former satellite network to Oral Roberts University for $6 million at the end of the month unless he finds a buyer for the entire PTL complex. "I do have a firm deal with Oral Roberts University. However, in the contract, I expressly reserved the right to sell all the assets until the point of approval of the sale of just the network," the trustee, lawyer Dennis Shedd, said last week.

Oral Roberts may have gone too far in his demands for donations and could be blacked out this Sunday morning, according to the one Los Angeles television station that carries his program. For the last two weeks, the Oklahoma television evangelist has been informing his viewers that he will die if they don't contribute $4.5 million to his ministry by March. His Sunday morning program is carried by 200 stations nationally, including KHJ-TV Channel 9.

After three decades on the air, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are still going strong but finding that tougher competition for the religious dollar and other economic and political factors are forcing changes for television evangelists. Between them, Falwell, founder of Moral Majority, and Robertson, who's considering a run for the presidency, have laid off more than 250 employees and slashed their budgets by a total of $34 million because revenues have fallen short of estimates.

The money began to pour in as soon as Oral Roberts said God would end his life unless he raised $8 million for his troubled medical school. And, thanks to a $1.3-million gift from a Florida dog track owner, Roberts announced that the goal had been topped just before the March 31, 1987, deadline. The television evangelist-faith healer repeatedly told his followers that the donations would fund "full scholarships" for Oral Roberts University medical students.